Camino Winds (Camino Island #2)(29)

“Your writers?”

“Yes. There’s a clan of them on the island and I’m the den mother. I encourage all of them to write more so I’ll have more to sell.”

“How well did Nelson sell?”

“His last book did about a hundred thousand copies in print and digital combined, and his numbers were steadily increasing. I pushed him to do a book a year. He was on the right trajectory with his career, but Nelson had a lazy streak. I said that to him once and he gave some lame excuse about still being tired from big law. I said that was nonsense.”

“Did you ever read his stuff before he sent it to New York?”

“No. With some writers I do, but I’m known to have a lot of opinions so most shy away from my editing. Nelson asked me to read his latest, said he had finished the first draft and was polishing up the second.” Bruce decided he would discuss the hard drive later. There was so much ground to cover.

He poured the soup in a bowl and presented it to her. She smiled and said, “Thanks.”

“What color wine do you think goes best with tomato soup?” he asked.

“Let’s postpone the wine.” She stirred the soup, blew on a spoonful, and tasted it. “Compliments to the chef.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“So, Bruce, was my brother murdered?”

He took a deep breath, walked to the fridge, opened it to fetch a beer, realized he’d had two already, removed nothing, closed the door and leaned against it with his arms folded across his chest. “I’m not sure, but a few things are certain. Number one, Nelson is dead.” He described Nelson’s body when they found him. He summarized Dr. Landrum’s summary of the autopsy and cause of death.

She listened without blinking, without emotion, and without eating her soup.

“And number two. There was a woman involved. Ingrid.” He took a deep breath and told Bob’s story from start to finish, slowly and with every detail he knew. Polly stared at the table and never picked up her spoon.

“And number three. The police are investigating now, at this moment, and you can’t enter Nelson’s condo until they’re through.”

“Sounds like murder to me,” she said softly, but again with no emotion.

“It’s murder, Polly. Any suspects come to mind? Something from his past that he never shared with anyone here on the island?”

“Well, Ingrid is certainly a suspect.”

“Indeed. But why? They had just met. If she had no motive, then she did it for money.”

She shook her head and shoved the bowl away. The soup was cold, and it was probably the last can of Campbell’s Tomato. Bruce hated to see it wasted, but the stores were reopening and it was time for a grocery run. It takes a disaster to make you appreciate the basics.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t think of anyone. As far as I know, his only enemy is his ex-wife, but she got the money and lost interest. You have a theory?”

“Yes, and mind you I’ve spent the last five days with Andrew Cobb, ‘Bob’ as we call him for some reason, who’s a convicted felon who now writes some pretty graphic crime novels. He’s out there in a hammock snoring off his lunch of oysters and beer. You’ll meet him soon enough. And there’s a visiting student here named Nick Sutton who works in the store and reads virtually every crime novel published. We’ve had more than enough time to kick around various theories.”

“And your best one is?”

“It’s a long shot but we have to start somewhere. Ingrid was a pro who came and went and will likely never be found. The man who paid her is someone who doesn’t want Nelson’s next book to be published.”

“That’s pretty farfetched.”

“Agreed. But right now we have nothing else.”

She squinted her eyes and mulled it over. After a moment she asked, “And do you know what the book is about?”

“Not a clue. Do you?”

She shook her head. “I found his books difficult to read and we never talked about them. In fact, we haven’t talked much at all since he moved here. Nelson was a loner, especially after his troubles.”

“He was paranoid about getting hacked. It’s happened to some writers and musicians. Stuff was stolen. So he wrote offline. Somehow the bad guys knew what he was writing.”

“Oh, Nelson was definitely paranoid. He rarely used email. He even thought his phones were tapped. We corresponded by old-fashioned snail mail.”

“How quaint. I got the impression that he was always looking over his shoulder.”

“No doubt,” she said. “And he wasn’t like that until the whistleblowing episode.”

“And you say he cracked up?”

“After the divorce, which, as I said, happened after his departure from the law firm. Severe depression or a nervous breakdown or whatever they called it. We locked him away in a fancy joint for six months and he made a nice recovery. Still in therapy, though.”

For the first time, her eyes were moist. She removed her glasses and blinked a few times. “About a month ago, I received an overnight package from Nelson. In a letter he said he was enclosing his latest novel on a thumb drive, wanted me to hold it for safekeeping. He asked me not to read it until further notice. He gave me his new phone number. I wrote him back and asked why he was changing his phone number again, but he never answered, never explained.”